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Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online

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Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online

#131

Post by charwalker »

kerkeslager wrote: post #14
elmerfud wrote: post #2

It's not that I want to visit the store it's that I can't trust the store people to properly pick out fresh produce or good meat. When the stock person just takes a bucket of apples and dumps them in without care so most of them are bruised, why would I want that same person selecting which apples to send me? Often times to find 3 apples I have to examine 10+. Most of the produce selection is this way. Meat selection…

Playing devil's advocate: an enormous amount of food waste is caused by people simply refusing to buy ugly food. It's literally less wasteful to shave off most of a carrot so that it's a baby carrot, than to try to sell the same carrots as-is. There's nothing wrong with the ugly carrots--but they'll rot on the shelves. Bruised apples are perfectly edible. Maybe you just don't like them, and that's fine--there's no ac…

Specifically to bruised apples, the bruising may suggest crisp vs softness and factor into quality of the product. If I go looking for crisp apples, I avoid anything with a bruise as they often feel soft anyway and aren't worth checking. They are still edible, just not what I prefer or choose. I get that is a luxury of sorts, but I'd pick other fruit before a soft apple unless it is for baking.

Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online

#132

Post by makerofspoons »

Invictus0 wrote: post #126
makerofspoons wrote: post #113

I have decreased the amount of choice and the amount of shipping required for my food by switching to powdered nutritional shakes like Huel and Soylent. No need to worry about the picker getting the wrong thing and there is less need to worry about the colossal amount of plastic waste my weekly shopping used to create. I feel great and I only wish that there were some way to buy various 'lents in a reusable container…

Are you using Soylent as your only source of food? I have Soylent for breakfast most days and it has done nothing to decrease the amount of choice in my groceries; it replaces cereal and milk but I still have to go shopping for everything else.

I get a meal kit too for variety- three to four meals a week from Green Chef depending on the amount of leftovers.

Edit: If anyone knows of any good vegetarian/vegan meal kits that do better on plastic, let me know.

Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online

#133

Post by jmpman »

denimnerd42 wrote: post #20
kerkeslager wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Playing devil's advocate: an enormous amount of food waste is caused by people simply refusing to buy ugly food. It's literally less wasteful to shave off most of a carrot so that it's a baby carrot, than to try to sell the same carrots as-is. There's nothing wrong with the ugly carrots--but they'll rot on the shelves. Bruised apples are perfectly edible. Maybe you just don't like them, and that's fine--there's no ac…

You don't get any discount in this case though. You're still paying $2-3/lb for bruised apples that are like you said literally waste at that point and $2-5/lb for chicken that if you picked out yourself would be of higher quality. Even if they did give you a price break for lower quality food. They'd still do things like give you a pineapple that will never ripen before it rots like we received last week.

Just had grocery curbside pickup last week, including two pineapples. Both looked much greener than any I would have selected myself. (I normally select a pineapple where the inner leaves come out easily.) A bit of research online, pineapples don’t ripen once picked. Cut them up, and they were both fantastic.

Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online

#134

Post by timthorn »

ISL wrote: post #36
basseq wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if quality is there, how ripe do you want? Are you going to use those avocados tonight, or later in the week? Do you like green bananas or ones that are turning brown? Let alone the "what looks good today?" or "what's on sale today?" method of shopping! Even packaged goods are tough. When I'm in a store, I know quickly which product I want. I may not remember the brand name, but I can scan the shelf and find it.…

For me, the wish is for scripting. Most of my buying is algorithmic, but the filters don't match my algorithms. It is difficult to express, "Please give me the cereal that I like the most that is under $X/lb. If there is an exceptional deal, buy more." without an API or scripting.

We used to have such an API in the UK with Tesco, but that looks to have withered: https://www.tescolabs.com/category/api/

Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online

#135

Post by awillen »

kerkeslager wrote: post #14
elmerfud wrote: post #2

It's not that I want to visit the store it's that I can't trust the store people to properly pick out fresh produce or good meat. When the stock person just takes a bucket of apples and dumps them in without care so most of them are bruised, why would I want that same person selecting which apples to send me? Often times to find 3 apples I have to examine 10+. Most of the produce selection is this way. Meat selection…

Playing devil's advocate: an enormous amount of food waste is caused by people simply refusing to buy ugly food. It's literally less wasteful to shave off most of a carrot so that it's a baby carrot, than to try to sell the same carrots as-is. There's nothing wrong with the ugly carrots--but they'll rot on the shelves. Bruised apples are perfectly edible. Maybe you just don't like them, and that's fine--there's no ac…

Not really. Here's one article that says otherwise (there are a lot more): https://thecounter.org/weve-heard-staggering-statistics-food..., but ultimately the crux of it is that there are things like applesauce and canned diced tomatoes out there. Companies can pay less for ugly produce to make those products where looks don't matter, so they do that. The market works well in this case.

Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online

#136

Post by haecceity »

denimnerd42 wrote: post #20
kerkeslager wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Playing devil's advocate: an enormous amount of food waste is caused by people simply refusing to buy ugly food. It's literally less wasteful to shave off most of a carrot so that it's a baby carrot, than to try to sell the same carrots as-is. There's nothing wrong with the ugly carrots--but they'll rot on the shelves. Bruised apples are perfectly edible. Maybe you just don't like them, and that's fine--there's no ac…

You don't get any discount in this case though. You're still paying $2-3/lb for bruised apples that are like you said literally waste at that point and $2-5/lb for chicken that if you picked out yourself would be of higher quality. Even if they did give you a price break for lower quality food. They'd still do things like give you a pineapple that will never ripen before it rots like we received last week.

They should price the produce according to its quality then.

Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online

#138

Post by darrylb42 »

elmerfud wrote: post #2

It's not that I want to visit the store it's that I can't trust the store people to properly pick out fresh produce or good meat. When the stock person just takes a bucket of apples and dumps them in without care so most of them are bruised, why would I want that same person selecting which apples to send me? Often times to find 3 apples I have to examine 10+. Most of the produce selection is this way. Meat selection…

Not to mention expiry dates on products. A store is happy to give out a 12 pack of KD that expires tomorrow. Shopping myself I know it will take a couple months to finish and won't by something about to expire. I also won't pick defective packages. Both of these things happened ordering from Amazon before this crisis and I have not tried them since, or likely ever again.

Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online

#139

Post by fsckboy »

Spooky23 wrote: post #119
fsckboy wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in a competitive market (which US groceries mostly are) if the store has to "eat the cost" of bruised fruit, then the price will necessarily have to be higher on the fruit they sell. Think of it this way, you have fruit at home to be shared by all the members of your family, it was fine when you bought it, but now some of it is bruised. So now you own a mix of fruit: what do you do, throw away the bruised fruit, or t…

Makes sense in economics 101. The reality is, the Instacart guy doesn't give a shit and will provide bruising as part of the service of schlepping your crap for you. The in-store shoppers don't really care either. The explanation that you're providing is really a rationalization for paying more to procure an inferior product. You're always going to have wastage of perishable items. It's much cheaper and sensical to a…

> The explanation that you're providing is really a rationalization for paying more to procure an inferior product

the explanation I gave is literally for paying less, so you missed the point of it, and you are then blaming econ 101 for your lack of understanding. And you are mixing in other factors that econ 101 covers, but the point of econ 101 is to learn to separate different factors.

Re: Americans, it turns out, would rather visit a store than buy food online

#140

Post by beobab »

haecceity wrote: post #136
denimnerd42 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't get any discount in this case though. You're still paying $2-3/lb for bruised apples that are like you said literally waste at that point and $2-5/lb for chicken that if you picked out yourself would be of higher quality. Even if they did give you a price break for lower quality food. They'd still do things like give you a pineapple that will never ripen before it rots like we received last week.

They should price the produce according to its quality then.

They already do to a certain extent. Damaged goods often find their way into the "reduced" section.
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